Wednesday, May 17, 2006

reviews MORE!

First, let me finish up with last week's books (as in the books I recieved last week)

Detective Comics 819

I'm really enjoying reading about Batman being, well, Batman again. No more asshole Batman! It's truely a thing of beauty. I also find myself amused at the reintroduction and subsequent death of washed up super-villians. I mean Orca... wow. I'm so tempted to tell my Aberrant GM that I want a super villian named Orca to be Tsunami's arch-nemesis. I mean... the whole idea of Orca is just so mind-boggeling. This is almost as amusing to me as '77's movie Orca. Either way I'm loving Detective Comics right now. If nothing else ICrisis has brought about the return of Batman and Superman. I also love how closely Batman and Gordon have been working together. Another bonus was more Jason Bard and Mr. Orca! I'm enjoying Jason Bard as a reoccuring character... pants optional.Action Comics 838

Superman is inspirational again! So cool! I am sad that the Adventures of Clark Kent may be drawing to an end, but I believe that Busiek really knows the character of Clark and Supes, so hopefully it will keep going strong. That said, I loved the train scene. The moves back to a time when Superman was just building as a myth is great... it's helping to reintroduce the character and hopefully will keep him going strong. It's also nice to see his relationship with Lois - they've let their love story grow strong again. Overall, Action Comics is one of my favorite books at the moment, which is suprising as I've never been a Superman fan.

Now, onto the books I got today, of which I will do a more comprehensive review later, but this one can't wait:

Nightwing 120

This book is TRASH. FCBD's Owly is far superior to the current Nightwing run. I didn't think it was possible to put anyone worse than Devin Grayson on this book but I was wrong. Now, not only is the character still being ruined, but the plot is crap. Apparently Jones cannot write worth a damn... not to mention the art.... don't get me wrong, the artist can draw, but his people are incredibly ugly. But seriously, I have rarely read anything published that was as poorly written as this issue - completely disjointed, Dick Grayson apparently throwing his secret identity away, some super-model with powers (I think we can guess what the "female Nightwing" solicitation was about), and to top it all off the lamest excuse for a cliff hanger ever - because NO ONE CARES if Jason Todd dies - in fact I really hope he does. Die Jason die. Am I the only one who's head hurt trying to read this book? I doubt it. Long live Owly.

7 Comments:

Jim said...

Agreed, agreed and almost agree. While I find Nightwing to be a very poor book (and it is upsetting being a Nightwing fan) I think that Jones run is on par with the horrible Devin Grayson run not worse.

It is nice to really like Batman and Superman again. Right now the writers actually get it with both characters.

The reason I think it's worse in Jones' case is because at least Grayson could structure a plot to some extent -it was just an awful plot. This whole issue was incredibly disjointed, it's as if no ones editing the book before it goes to a publisher. Even you agreed that Grayson isn't an incompetent writer when you read her Ras Al Ghul story. She just sucked at writning Nightwing because she had no care for the character. The only decentlt layed out part of the book was Dick's conversation with Clancy overlayingthe bad guy's scheming. Especially at the end of the issue... that last panel between Dick and Super-Model chick was AWFUL.

Don't you just love it when the books your favorite character is in are horrible and unreadable? Poor Nightwing. Let's have an old fashioned deathmatch starring all the Robins. Throw them in the ring, drop a cage around them and let 'em duke it out til only one is left standing. I know they tend to keep on dying, but how many Robins does Bruce need? And yes, the Batman and Superman books are good again, but it's only a tease. After seeing what Dini and Morrison have planned for Batman I really hope Robinson signs back on in a year. What's with Batman grabbing for guns all the time? What's with the villains he's around dropping dead? Dini has Bats inadvertently knock a man to his death in the first few pages of his Batman run. That's not my Batman. And let's hope Supes doesn't get his powers back too quickly cuz I'm liking the book a lot just how it is now. Thanks for the reviews! Oh, Cshiana, if you get the chance and happen to be passing by your comic shop please pick up the new All Star Batman. I'll reimburse you for the cost plus a little extra for gas money. This book was hilarious! Miller is giving us a totally insane Batman who I hope we never see again but I am just loving this take on the character. Dying to see what you think as it seems I'm the only one liking this book.

My Dad sends me All Star Batman - although as I haven't enjoyed the last issues that much because Miller doesn't write MY Batman. I'm not all that fond of manaical laughter Bats... I still think Batman and the Monster Men was a better iconic version of Bats. I don't really mind people dying all around Batman as long as he's not killing them - it's a murder mystery... I had almost forgotten Batman was a detective up until this point! As far as Supes goes, I don't mind if he gets his powers back if they still let him be Clark. I think that's been a big weakness of Supes lately - they focused way to much on the Kal-el thing.

So what do you think of Robinson killing off all the C-list villains. Makes me sad. Dan Slott said that any villain can be a good villain if handled by the right writer. I agree. After all, Slott is the one who made Magpie a favorite of mine in Living Hell. So why kill all these characters? Why not just let them fade away into limbo til the proper writer comes along? Couldn't crime family members be getting killed instead?

As for killing off C-list villians, if some writer wants to do them justice they can create their own C-list villians and if one of them wants to be called Orca they can come up with some invetive way to tie them to the old villian.

Well, if you've noticed there really haven't been any new heroes or villains created in the past few years. The writers don't want to give away good ideas for nothing. Sad. All they do is bring back old ideas and replay them with very dark twists, ie ID Crisis. Wish there were more writers willing to create for the big 2 the way Kirby and Lee did.